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Monthly Archives: July 2015

Hello folks, thought I’d put a quick post up with the results from some holiday al fresco painting! I’ve found it a bit tricky not having a steady light source, so this isn’t my best work technically speaking, but jolly good fun nonetheless… I’ve had some funny looks from fellow campers though, the site is quite open! One lady looked quite alarmed when she asked what I was doing, and I replied that my therapist suggested painting toy soldiers as a way to keep myself calm 😂

Anyhow, I digress. First up we have the famous ‘space sensei’ – probably the cream of the crop with the old RT pirate sculpts. I’ve gone with a fairly muted pallet here and a bit of freehand work on the kanji script for that authentic sensei vibe. The kanji is actually the characters for a promoted lance in the game Shogi. I don’t have a name for him yet but here he is (oh, and I forgot white paint, so I couldn’t do the eyes – hence the sleepy look!):

Next up, we have a pair of pirates that I felt were begging to be painted as aliens… In my mind, they are a weapons team from a culture that celebrates and encourages a symbiotic pairing between individuals to achieve a goal. In this case we have one chap augmented to be a dedicated weapons platform, and another specially adapted to act as spotter and close protection… I’ll have to see if I can figure out how to make that work from a rules perspective.

I’m kind of fixated on ‘Cheech & Chong’ for their names, but stuck for a name for the alien race that they come from… Any suggestions?

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed looking as much as I enjoyed painting them – hopefully there will be plenty more to follow! TTFN! 😎

Hello chaps and chapesses, just wanted to pop in a quick post – I’m off on my holibobs soon and have been inspired by http://gameoftravel.com/ to do some hobby on the road, so I was determined to pack some paint to take on my travels. I already had a foam lined case that comfortably takes 15 primed and based space pirates and some brushes, but I also wanted something extra cool to pack the paint in… A quick rummage in what can only be described as a junk store turned up a this nifty little sewing box for £10. It’s ridiculous just how delighted I am about how many pots I can squeeze in 🙂

Classy! Now I just need to find some cool brasswork for handles & a latch… and maybe a skull or two 🙂

Happy Tuesday folks, I have ‘sumpthing’ a bit different for you today – a write-up of my first game of Rogue Trader since 1989! This is something I’ve been looking forward to revisiting since painting up some of the original RT Space Pirates… partly because of nostalgia, but also looking for a different way to play 40k that isn’t a pitched battle between army lists. My pal Ross kindly volunteered to participate, and came over with a merry band of chaos cultists to pit against my pirates. We threw some terrain down and got stuck in! It went thusly:

Scenario:

We rolled up the scenario that involved poisoning a water supply, so we took some artistic license and decided that the cultists were attempting to sabotage ‘the sump’, (an underhive chemical processing plant), with the aim of causing a leak and polluting the local water supply… Because Chaos and ting…

My merry band of pirates had been hired to protect the processing plant – just filling time with a bit of protection work while their ship is undergoing repairs. They certainly weren’t expecting trouble…

I started out with four pirates guarding the sump, with six more starting off the board. The cultists attacked in three groups of four.

Early game:

The cultists appeared from the gloom of the underhive and rushed towards the sump, hugging cover as they came. There was no fire from the mob, as they were mostly armed with pistols, but the pirates on the sump started to take pot shots, managing to drop a couple of cultists as they closed. Meanwhile, the rest of the pirates were alerted by the shooting and rushed to support their crewmates. The race was on – could the reinforcements get there before the cultists could overrun the facility!

Mid game:

The shooting intensified as the cultists drew closer. It took the cult leader a few turns to figure out how to make his shotgun work, but once he did he and his squad started to whittle down the defenders on the sump tower. More cultists took advantage of the covering fire and rushed towards the sump access ramp, where they gunned down another defender – the sump was left in the hands of a lone pirate champion!

Meanwhile, the rest of the pirates had almost reached the sump. The pirate captain directed his Ogryn bodyguard and another squad mate to fire on the cultists closest to the ramp. Two of the screaming fanatics went down, but the captain had a nasty surprise when a warp entity tore itself into reality via the corpse of the cultist champion… a slavering red Daemon promptly charged the captain! A flurry of blows was exchanged, and the Daemon was forced back, (helped by the captain’s Ogryn bodyguard piling in!). Meanwhile the final squad of cultists rounded a corner and took an opportunistic shot at the group, one of them setting the Ogryn alight with a flamer. The final squad of pirates tried to thin out the cultists milling around the sump with weapon fire, but with little effect – no doubt they were distracted by the sight of a daemon bursting from a dead body, and the enraged bellows of a burning Ogryn.

The remaining cultist from the squad that spawned the daemon made his way up the ramp. The mutant beastman was almost there – a lone defender stood between him and his goal. The pirate champion heroically charged the abhuman but failed to wound the creature. The beastman lined up a thunderous headbutt and dropped the pirate – the way was clear! The creature snorted in triumph as he reached his objective… and then looked in puzzlement at the mechanism he was supposed to be sabotaging – intelligence test failed! Meanwhile, the captain and his human squadmate managed to beat out the flames on the burning Ogryn, and then they finished off the Daemon as it bounded back into combat. The other pirates tried their best to pick off another pair of cultists as they ran up the ramp to help the intellectually challenged beastman, but they couldn’t hit a barn door.

End game:

The death of the Daemon meant that the captain and his unit were now free to act, and 40 stone of angry smouldering Ogryn thundered up the ramp and pounded the two cultists into the ground, before glaring up at the beastman who was still trying to figure out how to sabotage the mechanism.

The remaining pirates piled in to the cultists milling around the base of the sump, but to little effect. It all came down to the chaos beastman… he did his bestest & hardest thinking, and in a flash of inspiration, he thunked out how to foul up the mechanism and dump thousands of litres of toxic sludge into the drains. Job done, he calmly turned to confront the Ogryn who was charging up the ramp, looking for some payback. He snapped off a shot, and was delighted to see the Ogryn drop to the floor with a puzzled look on its scorched face.

The pirate captain decided that enough was enough – outnumbered and outgunned, he ordered his remaining crewmates to ‘tactically withdraw’. The cultists had doggedly achieved their aim despite losing two thirds of their number in the process.

Impressions:

Well, that was a whole load of fun! The Rogue Trader rules are a little clunky at times, (working out all the modifiers for different blokes & weapons), and the book is a bit disorganised, but that only served to add to the creativity and fun. There were several points that were open to interpretation, so we just rolled for stuff or made things up on the spot. Without realising it, we were both playing to have fun and tell a story rather than kill stuff and win… a very pleasant change from modern 40k.

My favourite moments were the cinematic ones – the Warp Entity (Daemon) appearing and mindlessly launching itself into combat with the nearest target was one… that and the heroic actions of the beastman in completing the mission and dropping the Ogryn in a single turn – priceless 🙂

Another thing I really enjoyed was the small model count – this is great, as it means that the game is easy to get into – it doesn’t need to cost much, is quick to paint, and is much more character driven. Ross and I both went with old lead miniatures, but you could easily do this with modern plastics at a much lower price.

All in all, I can strongly recommend giving Rogue Trader a whirl. It seems to sit nicely between modern 40k and Necromunda, with a pinch of Inquisitor thrown in for good measure. I’m looking forward to cracking out a few more period miniatures and having another bash 🙂

Happy Monday folks, I’ve had a really poor week hobby-wise, with hardly any time for painting at all! But… I did manage to finish this guy, and I am rather pleased with the result:

He’s based on the old Titan Princeps Seniores, (thank you Ross!), tricked out with Skiitari/Sicarian arms and appendages. I intended for him to form part of the growing ‘Agentia Scrutator’ salvage team on my work bench, but I also wanted him to stand out a bit, either as a character or even as a lone agent. I just reversed the colour scheme to achieve this – a simple trick that seems to have worked. Here he is with the other tech ganger for comparison, (a good excuse for a slightly better photo of the first guy):

I also got slightly side tracked with the freebee AoS mini that came on the cover of last week’s White Dwarf… I got a bit obsessed with stuffing the body cavity with rods and cogs, but after a lot of huffing and puffing I ended up with this – the Tick-Tock man:

I have some ideas for this dude – I imagine that he is a creepy automaton that dwells deep in the sumps, some technological relic of a past age. Rarely seen by anyone who lives to tell the tale, he has become a mythical bogyman used to frighten children… but, (of course), the tales are true and the Tick-tock man is real, toiling away in the depths – but to what end?

Happy Monday folks, quick post today – I finished a test piece for my Confrontation Gangers… I went for the solid cast ‘leader’ model, figuring he’d be the easiest to strip if I didn’t like how he came out. Fortunately, I don’t think it’ll be necessary, as I am quite pleased with the result:

The photos don’t really do him justice, and I couldn’t be bothered to set it all up again, so here’s a quick sunny shot to give you a better idea of the colour scheme in brighter light:

I’ve also started working on a back story for these guys:

“The Agentia Scrutator, (Salvage Agents), are an obscure and secretive function of the Imperium which specialises in seeking out and claiming archeo/xenotech throughout the galaxy. They operate as part of the Ordo Xenos branch of the inquisition, and their mission is simple – reclaim alien technology in order to further the knowledge of their Inquisitorial masters, while keeping such forbidden technology from falling into the wrong hands.

The sensitivity of their function and the clandestine nature of their work gives these agencies a degree of discretion rarely seen in the Imperium, and Scrutators tend to be independent and resourceful individuals who form tightly knit teams of technical experts. Such teams also tend to be highly proficient in combat – the technology they seek is often incredibly valuable and their missions regularly bring them into conflict with other treasure hunters, both alien and human.

Such mundane conflicts are to be expected, but sometimes the Scrutators also find themselves in contention with agents of the Adeptus Mechanicus – a much more sensitive and difficult proposition. No two Mechanicus exploratory teams are the same, and the outcome of such a meeting is hard to predict. At best, the two parties share a tacit and pragmatic acknowledgement of each other – either avoiding conflict, or even assisting each other in rare cases. However, some Explorators see the activities of the Scrutators as blasphemy against the Omnissiah… contact with such zealous members of the Mechanicum is almost certain to end in bloodshed – a dangerous prospect which invariably creates tension between the Priesthood of Mars and the Inquisition.”